Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Weeks before spring training, the Los Angeles Dodgers got an early workout this morning as jurors heard a woman claim she lost partial vision after an abusive, foul-mouthed fan hit her after a Sunday afternoon game against archrival San Francisco.

The central issue in the Los Angeles County Superior Court lawsuit is whether the Dodgers provided enough security at the ballpark in Chavez Ravine. Marta Parra Helenius, a 31-year-old nurse, claims the team didn't follow its own rules on how to handle unruly fans, leading to the assault and making her legally blind in one eye.

Helenius was punched in the parking lot after the San Francisco Giants pulled out a dramatic, ninth-inning victory on July 17, 2005, before 47,000 spectators. Denise Ordaz was charged with hitting Helenius, pleaded no contest and was sentenced to 270 days in jail last year.

Fans have been killed at Dodger Stadium and this piece of foxy boxing causes a lawsuit? We eagerly await the final decision.

At first I thought this was just another silly lawsuit, but it looks like the woman involved has suffered serious physical injury. Since the assault seems to have taken place on the Dodger Stadium grounds, there's at least a whiff of culpability, though honestly it's not clear what Dodgers security could have done differently.

My reaction is to avoid going to Giants games altogether. It seems to draw the worst kind of morons into the stadium.